The Corpse Was Blind - Chapter 5

Ray Irish Mystery Case File #4

A few hours later, Ray lay on the couch in Cat’s apartment. A restless moonbeam filled the living room with a soft light. The silence in the dark room broke every thirty minutes when her mantle clock struck the time. Irish kept thinking he was on a fool’s errand, but Cat insisted on someone to collaborate with her story. He agreed when she promised him a meal from her.

After they finished a late dinner, he watched her in the kitchen as he had another drink. He offered to help, but Cat insisted on doing it herself. While the kitchen was small, he believed her reluctance came from their strange relationship. She always maintained her distance from him, even to the point of awkward situations. Ray knew they carried feelings for each other. Still, they found it easier to nitpick at each other. Neither could take the first step to change their behavior.

Catherine carried a fanatical dedication to marrying someone of wealth. From the time they met, the woman jumped from one potential suitor to the next without regard to the consequences to her reputation. Irish knew Oyster City society would never accept someone with Cat’s past.

Of course, Ray’s sarcastic bluntness only made matters worse, leaving them to stew for days in bitter silence after the inevitable argument. For his part, Irish felt the woman needed to get away from the men who dangled gold in her face to get a regular bed partner. When he thought about a pretty woman lying in bed only twenty feet away in another room, he had to admit there might be a bit of jealousy in his reaction.

A shamus job doesn’t pay well enough to keep gold diggers interested!  

When the clock struck one, Irish yawned. Having a difficult time staying awake, he rolled over on the lumpy couch. His suit coat slid off the couch to the floor, but he left it there. After removing his tie, Ray focused his mind on his encounter with the FBI and the district attorney a few hours before. The common element kept coming back to him.

Mary Leigh!

Everything about the woman did not fit. Ray wondered how much he witnessed when he met her was an illusion. She carried expensive tastes as he saw inside the house. Yet, the gruesome sight of her husband’s body elicited only the barest of emotions. Irish caught on to her sympathy act early on because he witnessed enough grief and pain in the war to recognize people who buried emotions well. Mary was one of those people. If he had to guess, Ray would put Mrs. Leigh in the category of people who have seen or experienced for more than a normal person.

Adding to the strange behavior were the government types wanting him to stay away from the woman. It left him with the obvious deduction that her husband and her held valuable information that many others wanted. He could see what was coming from a mile away.

Someone would go after Mary Leigh for the information. Ray would bet his last dollar that the government types were keeping a close eye on her and his involvement might throw a monkey wrench into their plans. After his encounter with the FBI thugs, Irish like the idea of becoming a thorn in their side.

The shamus heard the creak of a door, and he lifted his head to see a form in white stepping toward the couch. Cat’s pale blue sheer nightgown highlighted her body when she stepped into the moonlight coming through a window.

“Come with me!” she whispered.

Ray rose and joined her. They silently entered the bedroom, and she tugged on his sleeve.

“Listen. It’s over there!”

He noticed a tremor in her voice. He smiled, realizing he carried his own icy shiver running down his back at the creepy atmosphere in the room.

Irish cocked his head and looked at the white dresser, which sat next to the bed. It stood out in the shadowed room. After a moment, he heard something. The shamus stepped closer, letting the sporadic sound guide him. At first, he thought it was a whisper, then another voice joined, only to fade into a type of static hiss.

He felt the woman close in behind him as he came closer to the piece of furniture. Just as they got to the dresser, the noise stopped.

“It’s like this every night,” she whispered near his ear.  

He looked into the mirror, half expecting to see a ghost. Instead, he made out the shadowed forms of him and Cat reflecting from the silvered glass.

They waited for the sounds to start again. As the minutes crawled by, no sound came. Finally, as he was about to give up, the whispers started.

“Turn on the light!” He ordered.

Cat hurried to the other side of the bed and turned on the table lamp. The sounds stopped.

Irish went to the dresser and carefully looked it over as Cat rejoined him.

“It’s coming from this area,” she told him. “I think it’s my jewelry box. I’ve already made sure my radio was off.”

The woman pulled open the top drawer and retrieved a necklace, which she showed Ray.

“Omar got me this a few weeks ago, and the voices started right after that. He says it’s nine hundred years old. Treasure hunters dug it up in Palestine.”

Ray stared at the necklace, and his suspicions about Riza returned. To the shamus, the piece of jewelry in her hand carried the same look he saw in the cheap markets in Australia. He remained quiet about his thought. Instead, he pointed to the jewelry chest.

“Anything else in there that’s old jewelry?”

Cat’s face turned red as she shook her head.

“No, just a few things some friends gave me.”

Irish dropped his planned sarcastic comment. As he stared at the dresser for a moment, then noticed something odd about the arrangement of items on the dresser. A cathedral style radio sat next to the jewelry chest. The big, bulky shape overpowered the knickknacks and glass perfume bottles she had on top of the dresser.

While Ray came over only occasionally, Cat always struck him as a meticulous person. In the living room, each shelf had a well-thought-out placement for every item. Even the magazines on the coffee table remained neatly stacked. In the kitchen, she arranged the dishes that evening in a symmetrical order when placing them in her chrome-plated steel dish rack.

“There’s something wrong in this bedroom.”

Cat glared at him.

“What are you talking about?”

She stepped next to him and looked at the dresser.

“Oh, you mean the radio?”

“It’s too large for where you’ve got it,” he said.

“What’s that got to do with my jewelry chest?”

Ignoring her question, Ray went over and pulled the radio away from the wall.

“Why do you have such a large radio on your dresser?”

“Oh, that’s because I wanted to listen to music when I fall asleep.” The woman frowned when she observed his inspection of the radio. “I haven’t been sleeping well, and Omar suggested I should listen to music before sleeping. During one session, the spirits told him it would help.”

Irish glanced back.

“Have you had this thing in for service recently?”

“No, I carried in from the living room,” she replied.

Ray gave her a cheesy smile.

“So, if I told you that the spirits say you should go on a date with me, you’d believe it?”

“You’re not a mystic!” she replied quickly.

“Look at this.” Ray turned the receiver around to show her the open chassis filled with tubes.

“See all the dust on the equipment and the tubes inside this radio? But I’ve never seen this type of equipment before. You have a small chassis screwed into the side. See those new tubes in it and no dust on them?”

Catherine’s shocked expression made the shamus puff out his chest a little. She reached out to touch the tubes, then yanked back her hand.

“They’re hot! What does this mean?”

“I guess it’s running all the time, even when you’ve got the power off. I’m not a radio whiz, but I have a theory,” he told her as he pointed to the smaller chassis.

“From the size, maybe it’s a smaller radio that picks up a single band. I saw walkie-talkies during the war with a handset about that size. You see that one wire goes to your speaker? It makes me think someone put in another receiver into this box.”

“Why would someone put that in there?”

He hesitated, then decided to give her a full broadside.

“Well, someone might send over a strange voice across the radio at night. Maybe put it in a few houses. Suddenly, those people think they’ve got ghosts.”

“You mean Omar did this?” Her expression turned dark at the revelation.

“Did you invite him to your apartment?”

She looked away before nodding. When her eyes met his, Ray recognized a growing anger.

“Well, I can’t say without looking at this equipment more. Plus, I’d want to get a radio expert to confirm my suspicion. But you told me that Riza held seances with multiple clients and he stayed busy. If he has a partner, it wouldn’t take much for them to install this equipment when people are at Omar’s sessions.”

Catherine was heading to her closet before he finished his explanation.

“Where are you going?” He asked, although he suspected the answer already.

“To get that bastard,” she said.

“How? You’ve got nothing but my theory.” Ray went to her while she pulled a dress from the hanger.

The woman hesitated, then looked down. For a moment, Irish thought she was crying. However, when she turned back to him, there was a mix of bitterness and frustration in her expression.

“Why can’t you be wrong about someone I like at least once?”